The present invention relates to a memory circuit which performs a reading and a writing operation with an optical signal.
Conventional semiconductor memory circuits employ transistors in each of the writing, memory and reading sections. If it is necessary to design an optical memory circuit that performs a reading and a writing operation with an optical signal, common practice is to couple a photodetector to each of the read signal and write signal input terminals in a conventional memory circuit composed of transistors. A problem with this approach is that since the memory circuit section is of a conventional type which uses transistors, the writing and reading speed are limited by the operating time of the transistor, thus making it impossible to fully exploit the advantage of using input optical signals which permit high-speed operation.